MindStalker:I never understood the hate for paypal. They aren't a bank, they don't have deposit insurance, but in general they've always tried to do the right thing. But when person X screws over person Y using paypal, paypal can't just throw money away and make it all better. All the accounts of paypal "locking funds" are temporary, and only last until paypal is sure that credit charges can't be reversed, leading paypal holding the bad.

1. Paypal had a nasty habit of using "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" when responding to bad charges. So if someone bought a widget off you for $1.00, and THEY sold something on ebay for $20, and the person who bought THAT stole a credit card to make that bid; payPal would lock all three of your accounts and pilfer all of the money inside of all of them to make themselves whole from the third theft. So if you had $600.00 in your account, the whole $600 would be gone because you legitimately sold a $1 widget.

2. Not to mention if an account ever had more than 5k in it, they would lock the account for at least two years, possibly forever, as 'obviously money laundering', and keep the money for themselves. They borked pennyArcade and somethingAwful.com's Hurricane releif, and Minecraft's Notch this way to the tune of over 20k a pop, merely for the crime of having "too much money" in the account. (They did finally let Notch go, although this may have more to do with the Nordic banking laws than any activity on payPal's part)

This led to a lot of really bad feeling when someone would be collecting money from multiple people kickstarter-style for a central purpose (charity, a major project, a group/class trip) and paypal would steal the money inside the account under cause 1 or cause 2, leaving the account-holder holding the bag for dozens, if not hundreds of screaming clients, demanding product and/or their money back and being unable to provide either, because payPal had all the money. And payPal was not a bank and needs to provide absolutely nothing under its mandatory arbitration agreement, so legally they never have to give you your money back at all, yet you may still be liable to the buyers for providing a refund of the money stolen by payPal out of your own pocket. I've seen dozens of such cases.

PayPal ranks, in my book, right next to Nigerian spammers on the trustworthiness scale, one step *under* BoA.

Hobodeluxe:Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: Considering the damage to the US for last 30 years, I nominate Walmart to hold the title indefinitely.

Walmart is just a symptom of bad trade policies.

A symptom which makes it the largest company on the planet, a company that puts continuous downward pressure on all costs (including labor) and helps redefine a lower standard for the entire American retail industry, a company that has three owners on the Forbes top 10 list and openly provides forms for employees to apply for public assistance. Walmart is symptom of trickle down snake oil peddlers, but it's grown from an effect to a cancer.

As long as Walmart is as powerful as it is, labor's power will NEVER improve more than fractional increments.

oh_please:Aigoo: because why pay $29.99-34.99 for a new release bluray or $49.99-64.99 for a new release season of <insert show> on bluray when I can buy the same exact bluray, usually with extras, on Amazon for $10-35 less? That's why Best Buy can't compete.

If you want it NOW, you pay the price.

Or you go to Target or any number of stores that charge about the same as Amazon, plus or minus a buck or two. There is literally no reason at all for Best Buy to charge what they do. They're failing as a business because they are gouging, plain and simple. Target has overhead, too. So do many other stores (Walmart has some, but the way they 'pay' their people, it's minimal). They manage to keep their prices reasonable.

Fun fact: I looked up the price on a laptop on Best Buy's site and the manufacturer's site recently. Best Buy was charging $400 more than the manufacturer online and the laptop wasn't available in store. Shipping would have taken the same amount of time from both BBY and the manufacturer... so no, nothing at all to do with getting it NOW, everything to do with gouging. FWIW.. Walmart's online price on the same model was even higher! $600 more than the manufacturer and $200 more than Best Buy, so if you know Walmart fans, tell them to price check cause ol' Wallyworld ain't always the best deal.

I end up doing some consulting work for major ag interests on the multinational level, and if nerds on the Consumerist are ready to vote EA the worst company in America because of a farking video game launch, they really are sheltered and out of touch. I get whispers of some really sinister shiat happening overseas from those companies and I imagine those are far worse.

But oh noes, my $60 video game didn't work right! Get a grip on reality and lose the entitlement. Some companies are, y'know, actually doing evil stuff.

The list should entail every American company that has crossed the border to infest my beloved Socialist Canada, killing small businesses and large alike by selling crap we don't need that was manufactured by slave labour in the orient and Mexico.

/never set foot inside a walmart, never gonna, now adding farking target to that idealogical list.

Nana's Vibrator:Having been personally affected by Bank of America and Comcast with bogus invoices, I'm hoping one of them "wins"My only regret is that the "winners" will continue to be jerks and still make money.

Ah, I was wondering where the BofA hate was coming from. I bounced my account recently and they don't do the multiple charges for going over anymore, but I think that is thanks to probably the ONLY good thing congress has accomplished in decades. My girlfriend works with BoA verifying customer accounts with them and has nothing but good things to say about dealing with their reps - always professional and helpful unlike all the other banks she deals with.

Chase on the other hand, I've heard HORRIBLE things about from lots of different sources...

I don't know ... Wells Fargo could probably give them a run for their money.My previous bank, Wachovia, was bought out by WF. I got at least one new charge or fee on my account every month for the next sixth months.$20 overdraft protection fee - I haven't used it in the 15 years I had the account. Not once, even in high school.$25 student account fee - because apparently they thought I was in the 30th grade of high school.$10 fee for sending me new checks I never requested that now say WF on them.$30 low balance / low use fee which they automatically charged everyone on the 1st of the month, but would refund at the end of the month if it didn't apply.

Sure, I got them to refund or rescind every one of those fees, but enough was well and farking enough. The manager couldn't quite understand why I wanted to close my account the last time I went in. She also seemed personally offended I wouldn't take a check and demanded cash money. My other account, and only now, is with Navy Fed. The nearest branch may be 200 miles away, but they've never tried to screw me over.

gunga galunga:Elzar: Jesus there are a bunch of farking whiners about Sim City. I've played Sim City since a couple days after launch and no issues for me. Of course I am rather casual, but still...

I love the SimCity series but held off on this latest one after the bad press. How does it measure up to the others in the series?

It lacks the features and fun of SimCity predecessors... it's basically a facebook game, only without the facebook. I'm sure it's right for someone, but the lack of bulldozers to raise/lower terrain, the lack of subways and options like that, the dumbed-down AI, and the staggeringly small city maps that limit you to building East Davenport, IA (you can build it several times in the same region) are just too many factors to overcome. The initial server outages, and day 1 dlc, combined with EAs history of shuttering servers as soon as they release a follow up game, that's just icing on the cake.

The game is probably right for someone, but calling it SimCity is a gross misnomer.

andychrist420:FedEx would be great if their drivers could read a map. I've had 2 overnight packages returned to sender because their driver decided that my apartment didn't exist. Didn't check with the office, just decided the address was wrong. Protip: #47 is right between 46 and 48.

Called customer service, and got nothing but excuses. The biatch on the phone even tried to tell me the address was invalid. Funny, UPS has no problems finding it.

Hate to say this, but map-reading skills between the two are about even on average. The trick is that which one knows their face from their ass depends on which region you're in. I've lived in areas where Fedex knew where stuff was and UPS didn't, and vice versa.,Right now it's Fedex Air knows their shiat, UPS is 'average', and forget Fedex Ground, with who there is a 50% chance they'll run your package over with a forklift and deliver it three addresses down. Heck, I had to pick up a package 6 blocks away once. 'Luckily' it was a work package and the warehouse they delivered it to was ours. It was 'priority overnight' and they couldn't be bothered to READ THE ADDRESS? It sat at the warehouse for a week until the senders called us up because we hadn't told them we got it and we managed to track it down by who signed for it. USPS is slow but WILL get it there.

Final FourFacebook - too many privacy policy changes and constantly changing things to screw over their app developersJcP - failed turnaround, failed companyTime Warner - fairly weak bracket and I've been much happier with their internet recently, TV/DVR service and billing is total bs though.winner of Ticketmaster vs Equifax - two companies that exist only to screw you. At least at the end of the day you get an overpriced ticket through ticketmaster.

wildcardjack:As someone who gets a lot of services through FedEx and UPS I gotta say neither belongs on the board. They're both six sigma grade companies and rarely present problems.

Ontrac and Lasership tend to be the ones that worry me. But it's not my choice which one carries my product, it's always about time and money as calculated by the elves.

FedEx would be great if their drivers could read a map. I've had 2 overnight packages returned to sender because their driver decided that my apartment didn't exist. Didn't check with the office, just decided the address was wrong. Protip: #47 is right between 46 and 48.

Called customer service, and got nothing but excuses. The biatch on the phone even tried to tell me the address was invalid. Funny, UPS has no problems finding it.

I don't know ... Wells Fargo could probably give them a run for their money.My previous bank, Wachovia, was bought out by WF. I got at least one new charge or fee on my account every month for the next sixth months.$20 overdraft protection fee - I haven't used it in the 15 years I had the account. Not once, even in high school.$25 student account fee - because apparently they thought I was in the 30th grade of high school.$10 fee for sending me new checks I never requested that now say WF on them.$30 low balance / low use fee which they automatically charged everyone on the 1st of the month, but would refund at the end of the month if it didn't apply.

Sure, I got them to refund or rescind every one of those fees, but enough was well and farking enough. The manager couldn't quite understand why I wanted to close my account the last time I went in. She also seemed personally offended I wouldn't take a check and demanded cash money. My other account, and only now, is with Navy Fed. The nearest branch may be 200 miles away, but they've never tried to screw me over.

my biggest gripe with NFCU was that they were fine to deal with in person, and fine to deal with as long as you were handling transactions purely through them(car loan etc, all under them), but the minute you got outside writing more than a check a week, or heaven forbid, using debit, they completely dropped the ball and lost their shiat, not unlike a cocker spaniel with ADD.

in all seriousness, the negligence was unbelievable, and their ability to look like a bunch of retards all trying to dry hump the same park toy was unparalleled. so i went to a professional bank. left THAT bank because of how they were manipulating the timing of charges/deposits so they could tag me with overdrafts, and went to a local credit union that's respectable.

Medic Zero:Ideally we'd change to a credit union, but we live in an apartment with coin-op laundry. There's a BoA two doors down and no credit unions for miles, so we'll be sticking with BoA for several more years until I'm done with going back to school and get my new job making more pay.

This is exactly why they have customers. So many branches and ATMs. After the change, I never have cash on me and have to plan my stops to a bank. Still worth it for me.

Electromax:Yeah, I haven't played a SimCity game but the launch sounds like a mess and EA clearly has no clue what their fanbase wants, and is taking the MPAA approach of forcing down throats and expecting that to work. Old dudes in charge I guess.I just don't think that is worth being the worst company in America, when you consider what many companies in America are doing that affect much larger/more unfortunate groups than the American social stratum that plays city-building PC games in the month after they launch. Like botching my SimCity/the things you mentioned are the greatest affront, but the healthcare/agriculture/military complexes are just fine.EA belongs on a "Dumb Asshole" companies list, but not "worst" is a strong word.

Maybe the fact that the results of this contest is being based on an online poll at the Consumerist web site should clue you in to that this is not an billion pound ultra serious investigative report into the inner dealings of every company in the entire US, and is instead just a half joking excuse to get audience participation and let people blow off steam about the companies that directly affect their lives?

Medic Zero:Ah, I was wondering where the BofA hate was coming from. I bounced my account recently and they don't do the multiple charges for going over anymore, but I think that is thanks to probably the ONLY good thing congress has accomplished in decades. My girlfriend works with BoA verifying customer accounts with them and has nothing but good things to say about dealing with their reps - always professional and helpful unlike all the other banks she deals with.

Chase on the other hand, I've heard HORRIBLE things about from lots of different sources...

I had an account with BoA - I had a specific overdraft protection plan where I never get charged for bouncing a check, the balance comes out of my line of credit. So I mistakenly transferred too much from my checking to my savings and I overdrafted a check. Except 3 weeks later, within that very same period, Bank of America sent me my statement ALONG WITH a change to their terms. The changes included dropping my overdraft protection plan and they charged me a $35 bounce fee.I don't care what changes Congress may or may not have made - if they need laws to tell them how to properly treat a customer, they don't deserve customers.

My big Comcast story (tl;dr) ends with the girl behind the counter having a black eye, and everyone of us in line saying "as a person she didn't deserve it, but as an agent of Comcast, she did."

You have to remember that this competition is from the consumer point of view. Monsanto is probably one of the most evil companies in the world, but the average person in the grocery store doesn't know and doesn't care.

Exactly.... not to Godwin the thread, but, there are companies that are basically killing people in the name of profit... vs companies that basically are just screwing over consumers at their very worst. But, to consumers, we happily don't want to look behind the curtain at how the products are made, we just get angry over customer service issues.

You have to remember that this competition is from the consumer point of view. Monsanto is probably one of the most evil companies in the world, but the average person in the grocery store doesn't know and doesn't care.

secularsage:Let's eviscerate a video game company once again because SimCity wasn't as great as it should have been!

As great as it should have been? You mean, unable to play a single-player game at all because they couldn't access the server?

It's not "entitled" when you legitimately cannot use a product or service you have paid/are paying for--as was the case in Sim City and as was the case for many months with SWTOR for many people with developer-acknowledged issues in crashing and BSODs (Tier 4&5--that would be the development team--tech support finally resolved my BSOD issues after 4 months last year with SWTOR and it was such an issue for players for months that there were sticky threads on the forums about it). And for SWTOR players who could not play despite paying a subscription, there was no compensation. (WB Games/Turbine compensates players in the form of an in-game item when there is extended downtime on a regular basis--I note that they are not on the list).

You might consider looking up the meaning of the word "entitled" before you throw it around before you make yourself sound like even more of an idiot.

andyofne:Elzar: Jesus there are a bunch of farking whiners about Sim City. I've played Sim City since a couple days after launch and no issues for me. Of course I am rather casual, but still...

It has a lot of issues. They probably did rush the release and didn't do good beta testing / QA.

They didn't rush the release or skimp on the testing. They just did what a lot of other companies have since broadband internet became popular - let the customers do the testing. It was nice, back in the day when having to release patches was considered to be embarrassing.

EA may get some sympathy or some "wait and see" on the vote now that Riccitiello's out (the 29th is his last day). I think Sim City might have been what finally made the shareholders say "ok John, you can either step down voluntarily or we'll fire your ass. After DA2. SWTOR, ME3, and now this, we just can't take any more losses and horrible press."

Sweet baby Jesus, I hope they get someone actually competent in to take over...

wildcardjack:As someone who gets a lot of services through FedEx and UPS I gotta say neither belongs on the board. They're both six sigma grade companies and rarely present problems.

Ontrac and Lasership tend to be the ones that worry me. But it's not my choice which one carries my product, it's always about time and money as calculated by the elves.

Ontrac and Lasership aren't in my area, so I can't speak to them, but I am having a *real* issue with UPS right now. The last 3 deliveries they have made consisted of the driver dropping the package on my doorstep and taking off.

I wouldn't make a big deal out of it but all 3 packages were shipped "Adult Signature Only - Validate ID" because I am a home-based FFL dealer and all 3 packages contained firearms. The first 2 I found quickly because I noticed the truck driving away, but this last one (containing a Bushmaster AR-15) ended up leaning against my front door all night long.

Sent an e-mail to the regional managers office explaining the situation and offering to forward them the footage from the security cameras...not a peep out of them.

Can we nominate The Consumerist?...Just because they disabled their own on-site Comment system months and months ago, blamed "hackers", promised they would have it back up and running, and still nothing.

I don't know ... Wells Fargo could probably give them a run for their money.My previous bank, Wachovia, was bought out by WF. I got at least one new charge or fee on my account every month for the next sixth months.$20 overdraft protection fee - I haven't used it in the 15 years I had the account. Not once, even in high school.$25 student account fee - because apparently they thought I was in the 30th grade of high school.$10 fee for sending me new checks I never requested that now say WF on them.$30 low balance / low use fee which they automatically charged everyone on the 1st of the month, but would refund at the end of the month if it didn't apply.

Sure, I got them to refund or rescind every one of those fees, but enough was well and farking enough. The manager couldn't quite understand why I wanted to close my account the last time I went in. She also seemed personally offended I wouldn't take a check and demanded cash money. My other account, and only now, is with Navy Fed. The nearest branch may be 200 miles away, but they've never tried to screw me over.

"30th grade of high school"

Hahaha....thanks for my 1st genuine laugh of the day. And as a former asst. bank manager looking for a job, I will steer clear of WF now.

I'm not sure the mechanical failures were really the fault of Carnival. They could have been better prepared I guess, but feeding and dealing with a couple thousand old, fat tourists can't be easy when you don't have power.

I'm sure all victims were full refunded and given either cash or another cruise on da house. Then there'll be the lawsuits that follow... what fun!

Yay, let's ask the most entitled people on Earth which companies they think are the worst and trumpet that as some sort of news!

Let's not use a more scientific means, or talk to people who actually know what the fark they're talking about. Let's eviscerate a video game company once again because SimCity wasn't as great as it should have been!

gunga galunga:Karac: gunga galunga: Elzar: Jesus there are a bunch of farking whiners about Sim City. I've played Sim City since a couple days after launch and no issues for me. Of course I am rather casual, but still...

I love the SimCity series but held off on this latest one after the bad press. How does it measure up to the others in the series?

From what I've heard: the city sizes are smaller, you (and EA's servers) have to be in constant contact, it's forced multiplayer, and because of the multiplayer aspect you can't save and reload.

That last bit is what would really irk me. They've taken away the opportunity to say "GOD DAMN IT" and wipe out your city in a hailstorm of godzilla, meltdowns, and hurricanes - then reload the last save tomorrow.

Can we nominate The Consumerist for inclusion. We have a poll on worst companies that's only open for 3 hours a day but we're not going to tell you anywhere in the article about it what 3 hours those are. A simple "Polls will be open from 9am-noon Eastern time" (or whatever they're open) would go a long way

Every experience I've had with Walmart in the last few years has been horrendous.

Avoid it as much as I can now.

Don't know how they stay in business. Target manages to not screw things up... they're often cheaper than Walmart... their stores are better maintained and they don't make you wait forever at a single register with 30 others closed.

No reason to shop at Walmart usually.

I like PayPal. Ups and fedex are good.

Wanted to buy simcity but declined due to always online. Never bit-torrented a game in my life... possible Simcity will be first if someone hacks the online aspect out .

My local hospital also deserves a dishonorable mention.They've bought out roughly 75% of the practices within 20 miles and relocated all the offices to their building; nearly every doc in the county is now employed by this one hospital. If your doc was one of the ones involved in this you have to pay the hospital a $1200 a year charge to keep seeing him, otherwise you'll get assigned randomly to whoever they feel like.

The worst cable operator will be the one with the most customers. The worst retail operation will be the one with the largest revenues. These are where consumers who consider themselves powerless to resist goods and services come to vent about it.

Voiceofreason01:Best Buy probably can't beat Walmart but let's keep in mind that Best Buy spent the first half of this year crying to Congress that they can't compete with their outdated business model and won't Congress please pass some laws to help out.

dletter:My picks by region:WalmartComcastEA/Verizon... I could see either "winning" that region, depends on if the angry gamers come out in force to put EA aheadPaypal/Ticketmaster winner I think wins that region... I think Ticketmaster has slightly more people who hate them, so, will take them

Overall, I think Walmart will conquer all.

I never understood the hate for paypal. They aren't a bank, they don't have deposit insurance, but in general they've always tried to do the right thing. But when person X screws over person Y using paypal, paypal can't just throw money away and make it all better. All the accounts of paypal "locking funds" are temporary, and only last until paypal is sure that credit charges can't be reversed, leading paypal holding the bad.

Best Buy probably can't beat Walmart but let's keep in mind that Best Buy spent the first half of this year crying to Congress that they can't compete with their outdated business model and won't Congress please pass some laws to help out.

My picks by region:WalmartComcastEA/Verizon... I could see either "winning" that region, depends on if the angry gamers come out in force to put EA aheadPaypal/Ticketmaster winner I think wins that region... I think Ticketmaster has slightly more people who hate them, so, will take them